Re: 10 best (Little Walter)

[Peter Scott <scottp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 26 Oct 1992 ficara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> You're lucky to have seen Walter; can you tell a bit more about it?
> And I didn't know he played guitar as well.

During the early/mid 1960's the Marquee Club in London, UK was the home of
the British Blues Revival. All the British bands would play there:
Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Fleetwood Mac, Spencer Davis, Groundhogs, etc.
Visiting US players would show up and jam with the bands or be playing in
their own right. I remember seeing Cotton, Walter, SBW and so on. SBW was
always creating havoc for the "white" bands. I remember him telling a band
that the next song would be in the key of A for example, but he would pick
up a C harp, stop the tune, then tell the audience how useless white
players were! Walter was always very quiet and pleasant. I remember him
playing a big Gibson hollow body guitar in the Jimmy Read style. Pretty good.

As for "white" harp players I never liked Mayall's playing. For me the two
best players were, believe it or not, Steve Winwood of the Spencer Davis
group, and Paul Jones of Manfred Mann (he later formed the Blues Band).
Pick up some recordings of the time to hear how primitive the sound
quality was but how good these players were. I would also recommend
listening to Paul Jones harp work with the Blues Band. He is definately
not a Walter clone.